


Let These Words Fall Out

by Shapeshifter99



Series: Daemons of Sleepy Hollow [1]
Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman, Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Gen, I love HDM crossovers okay, pilot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 19:42:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3423254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shapeshifter99/pseuds/Shapeshifter99
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief retelling of the first half of the pilot but with daemons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let These Words Fall Out

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read HDM, daemons are basically the soul counterparts to humans, and resemble animals. Children's daemons can change until puberty, after which they are 'settled' in one form that suits their human's personality.  
> Ichabod's daemon, Adfellida, is a Welsh polecat/American polecat mix. They're part of the same family as ferrets, stoats, weasels and martens, if you didn't know.  
> Abbie's daemon, Visur, is a Bengal tiger.  
> Andy's daemon, currently nameless, is a hyena.  
> Katrina's daemon, Aramandax, is a fox.  
> Headless/Abraham's current daemon form is a crow.

When darkness closed in on Ichabod Crane, his only thought was of his daemon. Adfellida was huddled on his chest, her heart beating more and more rapidly in response to his own fading beats. He could feel her soft fur and her trembling gasps as if they were his own as they sank deeper and deeper into the embrace of Death.

They could vaguely hear the words of others… Aramandax’s soft whines and Katrina desperate pleas for them to stay alive. But consciousness began to slip, slip, slip away, beads of quicksilver running through Ichabod’s fingers. The pain had left some time ago, and now a heavy curtain was descending over his thoughts, obscuring any urgency or panic that might have taken over otherwise.

 _“Don’t die,”_ he heard Adfellida beg in his mind. _“Whatever you do, do not dare leave me.”_

Ichabod wished he could reply, but he was simply so tired. The weight of the world was pressing down on him, telling him to let go of everything. All the guilt, all the agony, all the lost friends… It seemed like an escape, as Ichabod dwelled in his own mind with only his daemon for company.

And without another thought, he and his daemon slipped into oblivion.

 

✥

 

Adfellida was the first to wake from their too-long slumber. When her dark eyes opened, there was a brief moment of shock and panic as she felt pressure on all sides and the barely-felt heartbeat of her human beneath her.

She began to scrabble madly, up and up and up through the crust of the earth that threatened to crush her. Beneath her, Ichabod shifted and twitched. Too focused on her task, Adfellida barely noticed it as he returned to consciousness.

Abruptly, he smashed upwards, shocking the little daemon into a yelp as she was flung from him. “Ichabod!” she shrieked as she went, half-indignant and half-relieved as she landed on a damp, frigid floor.

Ichabod sucked in a wet breath, and she felt his pain spike. In a heartbeat, Adfellida was scuttering towards him unsteadily, her claws clicking against the floor. “Ichabod!” she said again, this time more fearful.

The captain seemed to recover and grabbed blindly for her. She leapt into his arms, feeling comfort as she settled into her usual place against his chest, muzzle tucked into his neck.

“What on earth is happening?” he whispered into her fur, his voice unusually scratchy and hoarse as if he’d been slowly inhaling the earth that had buried them.

Adfellida shrugged her shoulders, her pupils so large they eclipsed her eyes. There was a deep uneasiness within her, one that she knew Ichabod felt just as keenly. _What happened to us?_

After what felt like hours cowering in the dark, Adfellida finally licked Ichabod’s chin to catch his attention, grimacing at the grime and filth that coated his beard. “We need to leave this place,” she said urgently, her voice unconsciously lowered to a whisper as it echoed around the cave they were in.

Ichabod nodded slightly, his long fingers tightening briefly around her sinewy form in further understanding before laying her down gently on the floor. The daemon immediately began to sniff around, tracking the scent of fresh air that she’d picked up a while ago. She was still unsteady on her paws, but Ichabod was even worse, practically crawling his way towards where she was headed. Several times Adfellida turned around and returned to him, a whine building up in her throat, but he waved her off weakly.

At last, they stumbled upon a secret panel in the stone (“Who did this?” Ichabod murmured, as if Adfellida knew any more than he did) and were faced with the blindingly bright outdoors.

Like moles burrowing their way to sunlight, Ichabod and his daemon staggered out into the open air, barely noticing their surroundings before they fell upon the clear river pouring past their grave (what else could they call it?).

Once they had drunk their fill and Ichabod was more firm on his feet, they began to stumble through the woods blindly, both of them knowing there was no way the situation could get any worse than it was presently.

They were frightfully wrong.

 

✥

 

“Let go of him!” Adfellida screeched as the strange-scented men tried to drag Ichabod into the strange metal monster that had appeared out of nowhere.

Her human was twisting and struggling just as fiercely, frequent exclamations of “Get your hands off of me!” and “I have rights!” bursting from his mouth at rapid-fire speed. The horrendous dog hybrid daemon of one of the man barked at her, spittle flying from its black lips.

Adfellida growled at it, her fur bushing up so she seemed twice her size. But she was still helplessly dwarfed by the creature, and within an instant, it had its jaws around her body. It was by no means painful, but almost immediately Ichabod stopped resisting, his face blanching as the constricting feeling took a hold of him.

The polecat daemon twitched feebly in its jaws, but Ichabod shook his head and allowed himself to be shackled and pushed into the strange object. The other daemon waited for a look from his own human, a severe-looking man with pale skin and ink-black hair, before entering as well.

“Officer Brooks here,” the man said briskly into a strange round box that he held up to his mouth. “Potential murder suspect detained for questioning. I’m bringing him and his daemon to the station.”

“What are you talking about?” Ichabod hissed, his pale blue eyes darting between Adfellida and the man. “What murder? Where are we?”

The man didn’t answer him, instead listening intently as a frightening, crackly voice that neither Ichabod nor his daemon could understand. Once the voice had stopped talking, the man (Officer Brooks?) added hesitantly, “Has Officer Mills received backup? Is the situation under control?”

The daemon holding Adfellida perked up at that, the mane on her spotted pelt bristling with attention.

Another pause as the box crackled and spat out words. “Good. I’m headed over now.”

With that, he stowed the box on his belt and got into the front of the strange metal object that was containing them. He did something that neither Ichabod nor Adfellida could really see, and to their shock, it jolted to life.

At the small yelp that erupted from Adfellida’s throat, Officer Brook’s dispassionate eyes met Ichabod’s in a mirror that was attached to the ceiling. “If you promise to behave, your daemon will be released,” he said simply. “Do you understand?”

There was a moment of stillness. Ichabod was too confused and Adfellida too fearful of what was going on to really understand what was happening beyond that this man was offering to let her go. So he nodded, and the strange dog daemon released her hold on Adfellida.

Ichabod opened his arms and she leapt into them, relieved as he cradled her protectively against his chest. Whatever was going on, it had to end soon.

It had to.

 

✥

 

Everything just got stranger from then on. Ichabod had managed to convince himself and Adfellida that they were either hallucinating, dreaming, or in Hell. They were both hoping that it was just a dream because that meant they would have to wake up eventually.

But as they were ‘driven’, as Officer Brooks had so carefully explained (his daemon had been bristling with confusion, but Adfellida ignored the ugly beast to the best of her ability) to the police station, nothing changed and the world continued to be as cold and unforgiving as when they had burst from their graves in a shower of dirt.

They’d been led into a room and questioned, with a condescending pug daemon watching Adfellida sharply as the man asked different things, each more confusing than the last.

It was only at the end of their interview that Ichabod and Adfellida were revealed the truth.

“Welcome to the 21st Century, Mr. Crane,” the man said, his voice cool as he placed a strange piece of paper down on the table.

Numb, Ichabod took it and inspected it. On one side, George Washington’s face was printed, his eyes staring unseeingly up at the captain as his magnificent bald eagle daemon stretched her wings in flight behind him.

“No,” Adfellida whimpered as they read over the date, the strange string of numbers and other meaningless adornments on it.

Neither of them noticed as the man stood and left, the pug daemon trotting at his heels. Some men came and began to detach Ichabod from his chair, then took him to a cell with blessedly familiar barred confines.

“I never thought I would be happy to see a jail cell,” Adfellida said flatly, but it somehow made Ichabod crack a smile. He was manacled again, but his daemon was let free, since she could move far from him anyways.

Even once they were alone, however, they were both silent, Ichabod thinking carefully through the last events he and Adfellida could remember before the darkness.

The Hessian… He had been there. Shiny scar tissue gleaming on his hand, the shimmer of his daemon’s black wings as it took fight. Now that Ichabod thought about it, he couldn’t recall seeing the crow vanish after he cut off the Hessian’s head.

The thought chilled them both to the bone.

But the more pressing matter was about their current situation. How on earth they had arrived in 2013 was a mystery, and both wished dearly that this was some kind of mistake, a prank.

Their thoughts were interrupted with the arrival of Officer Brooks, his daemon, and someone else.

The sight of the woman who stepped in made their eyes widen, not because of the rich, dark color of her skin, but of the looming daemon that hulked beside her petite frame. The tiger stared at them unflinchingly, deep gold eyes shining in the low light as a low growl of warning rose from its chest like thunder.

“Visur,” the woman said sharply, and the daemon stopped. A long, striped tail swishing angrily, the daemon turned towards Brooks and growled, “It’s not him.”

The address was towards the human, not his daemon counterpart. Adfellida and Ichabod couldn’t quite mask their shock. They had never seen such a fierce or large daemon before, and especially not for a dark-skinned woman of all people, but the informal speaking simply jangled their nerves even more.

“Are you sure?” the dog-like daemon of Brooks panted in reply, her short and stubby tail twitched.

The woman nodded and replied, her voice surprisingly quiet compared to the firmness of before. “Yeah, we’re sure. The guy who got Corbin had a bird daemon, though it was too dark for me to tell exactly what it was.”

“He was dressed in red,” the tiger daemon added, his voice low and rumbly. “A redcoat. And there was some kind of mark on his hand-”

That caught their attention. The memory of the scar flashed through their minds like lightning, never to be forgotten.

“Did he carry a broadaxe?” Ichabod questioned sharply, leaning forward as Adfellida bristled uneasily.

The woman’s eyes narrowed, and her daemon stiffened. “Why?” she said cautiously. “Do you know him?”

In the depths of her gaze Ichabod saw uncertainty and fear. Adfellida saw the grief in her daemon’s. There was a startling moment as the excitement from earlier faded away into wariness. But in an instant, just staring into those eyes, it felt as if these strange, unusual people were suddenly going to be allies, that they would help if they revealed the truth. It was as if they were on the cusp of something great, something of importance, and that it would only happen if they spoke up here and now, if they managed to convince this woman and her daemon to aid them.

And so it was with very little hesitation that Adfellida’s eyes focused on the tiger daemon’s face and she replied, her voice calm like water, “Yes. We cut off his head.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Every fandom needs a HDM crossover okay? I like to indulge myself. I might make more of this, just little codas here and there throughout the season if I feel like it. Hope you guys enjoyed!


End file.
